West Charlotte legend Gosnell White: coach, champion and Black history keeper
Not too long ago, Gosnell White found himself sitting down for a podcast with Charlotte Latin legend and former NBA player Anthony Morrow. And for the first time, White — a state championship basketball coach at West Charlotte and a three-sport athlete at the school — began to realize that he was a bit of a Black Charlotte historian.
Morrow asked about decades of Charlotte basketball, about different players from different eras and different teams. Sitting there smiling, White always had an answer.
“I never would’ve put myself in that category,” said White, now 70. “But I followed West Charlotte for so long. I fooled myself, because I knew so much about the history of West Charlotte basketball, and even the city of Charlotte. I guess time has put me in that category.”
It’s hard to argue that point.
In Black History Month, White is literally walking, talking Black Charlotte history.
He grew up on the west side of town. He was a star track athlete at West Charlotte, where three generations of his family went to school. After he graduated, in 1973, White became a three-time track All-American at Howard University. And after that, White came back to Charlotte and started one of the best high school coaching careers in Mecklenburg County history.
White retired 12 years ago and now lives in Durham.
“I’m glad y’all are talking to him,” said Justin Gray, who played for White at West Charlotte and is now men’s basketball coach at Coastal Carolina University near Myrtle Beach. “I mean, it’s long overdue. There’s so much history that’s around the University Park-West Charlotte area, on Beatties Ford Road, and he’s been a part of a lot of that.
“So this is long overdue to be able to sort of give him his flowers while he’s still here, right? Sometimes we wait too late to do these things.”
You start where you started from
Gosnell White grew up wanting to play at West Charlotte. He went to the games as a kid and dreamed of getting his chance.
He loved basketball, but the Lions’ legendary coach, Charles McCullough, fashioned him as a defensive ace, a guy he thought would one day be a coach. But White was also fast, and he excelled on the track.
“Basketball was my love,” White said. “Track was my gift.”
Howard offered him a track scholarship during his sophomore year. As a senior, White finished fifth in the N.C. state championships as a one-man team. The only player from West Charlotte who qualified, he finished fourth in the 200 meters and second in the 400.
In college, White quickly made a mark. He was the first Howard University track athlete to be named an NCAA Division I All-American, and he did that three times, mostly running on the 400-meter relay team.
As soon as he graduated, though, he couldn’t wait to get back to Charlotte and start coaching. His goal? Coach his alma mater. He wanted to be the guy to follow McCullough, who was on his way to becoming the greatest boys’ basketball coach in Mecklenburg County history.
“That was my dream job,” he said. “It always was.”
So White waited.
And waited and waited.
Finding success in middle school and at West Charlotte’s rival
White stayed at Ranson Middle School for 15 years, developing a reputation as a player’s coach, and slowly developing into something of a legend in middle school circles. Guys loved to play for him. And Ranson won.
White was 127-60 in middle school and won four conference titles. And each year, he and his teams seemed to get better.
His last three teams at Ranson were 40-2 with three straight championships. That kind of success made him a hot target for local high schools, but White kept going back to Ranson, kept waiting on McCullough.
“I wanted to follow Coach,” White said. “We were always talking about it. So I never applied for anything, because I was waiting on West Charlotte to come open, you know, because I was thinking Coach might retire.”
In 1992, Harding officials persuaded White to come to high school. McCullough was coming off back-to-back state championships at West Charlotte, and White felt like he couldn’t wait anymore.
Harding was 8-14 the year before he got there, but White built an instant power, going 74-29 in four years, on pace to reach 100 wins faster than any coach in Mecklenburg County history.
McCullough retired after the 1993 season. White said his principal blocked him from leaving. But West Charlotte’s once-mighty program began to stumble, as the Lions went through three coaches in three years. White knew it was time to come home.
And this time, Harding let him go.
Finally, at home, and what a run
White won two straight conference titles at Harding before he left, and won a then-Mecklenburg County eight straight at West Charlotte. In 10 years, he was named Observer coach of the year five times.
But he also had some bad luck.
— His first West Charlotte team, in the 1996-97 season, reached the regional championship game, or state semifinal, and lost to eventual state champion Independence. The Lions missed 14 of their final 18 shots and blew three leads of nine points or more.
— In 1997-98, the Lions went back to the regional finals and lost to eventual state champion Freedom, by a point, after referees inadvertently benched West Charlotte All-American Jason Parker for nearly the entire first half with a third foul that he didn’t have. Then, at the buzzer, guard Marcus Oliver made an apparent 3-pointer to tie that started a celebration.
Only the refs said it was a two.
“I hate it for the seniors,” Parker said. “But this makes me want to come back next year. I know Coach wants a ring. We’ll get him one next year.”
Sitting beside him, junior Dominique Townes said, “We’ll get him one. Guaranteed.”
The dream season of 1998-1999
After going 53-8 his first two years at West Charlotte, White and the Lions came into his third season with the best player in school history, Parker, and a unique determination to win the school’s first state title in seven years.
West Charlotte lost to two nationally ranked teams that recruited players from all over the country — Durham’s Mount Zion and Oak Hill (VA) — but few regular N.C. teams could even give them a game.
In March 1999, Parker had 38 points, 12 rebounds, five dunks and four blocks, one of the most dominant performances in NCHSAA finals history and West Charlotte won the state championship, winning 84-67 over Wilmington’s Laney High, Michael Jordan’s alma mater.
The Lions finished 30-2, ranked top 10 in America, and won their games by an average of 20 points for the season and 22 points in the playoffs.
Many observers still regard White’s ‘99 team as the best public school N.C. team in history.
“That ‘99 team was special,” White said, “because we went through so many hardships.”
White thought he would win a few more rings after that dream season, but it just didn’t happen.
“We were always so close,” White said. “I thought I should’ve had five rings. But as I’ve gotten older, I started to realize it was harder to win a conference championship, you know? It’s hard because you play those teams two, maybe three times a year. But I did want to win more state championships at West Charlotte, because that’s what we play for, but I do feel good that I put the program back in a good place.”
After the ‘98-99 season, White’s teams reached three more N.C. Western regionals, including probably his best coaching job, in 2005, when he led a team with no stars and no player averaging more than nine points to a state semifinal appearance.
“I admire him,” said Kurt Wessler, who coached at Butler and won a state title at Chambers. “He’s an icon. I’ve never seen a coach, on a season-to-season basis who can get kids motivated to play so hard. He’s amazing.”
To Union County and beyond
In 2007, White left West Charlotte, saying his relationship with principal John Modest had soured. The Lions were going through a bit of a coaching exodus, with Pete Gilchrist, who’d led West Charlotte football to the 2006 state championship game, also departing.
White landed at Marvin Ridge, a new school opening in Union County. He coached there seven years before he retired, with six winning seasons and an overall record of 79-54.
In 36 seasons, White was 535-228 as a high school coach and 662-288 overall.
He’s one of a handful of coaches to get to 500 wins in Mecklenburg County history, a list that includes McCullough, North Meck’s Duane Lewis, Charlotte Country Day’s David Carrier and three inactive coaches — the late Dave Price (Providence Day/South Meck), Will Robinson (Chambers) and Jerry Faulkner (Charlotte Latin).
“(White) is among a small group of educators whose professional career and life effectively epitomizes Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,” said Alex Bass, a longtime N.C historian and the director of development and special programs for the NCHSAA. “To go from being a student at West Charlotte, entrenched firmly in the Lions’ tradition, to being such a successful coach and mentor. He’s the epitome of the full-circle career, which is so integral to the fabric of his life story.”
Today, White still coaches basketball for a few weeks a year every summer at the Duke basketball camp. Back in the ‘90s, then-Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski came to recruit Parker, and White became fast friends with then-Blue Devils assistants Johnny Dawkins and David Henderson.
White has worked the summer camps for nearly 30 years. This summer, he may work with both of his sons — Damion, 43, who played for him at West Charlotte, and 20-year-old Isaiah, a sophomore at UNC-Greensboro.
As he told Anthony Morrow on the podcast, the ol’ coach is at peace.
“I was so happy you called me,” White said to an Observer reporter, “because, you know, sometimes you feel like you’re forgotten and out of touch. You know, it feels good that people remember what you tried to do and the people you tried to help. I’ve got a lot of people that I coached and that are coaching now, and I’m proud of them all.”
